


The Lord Is My Shepherd

by DragonWarden



Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:52:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonWarden/pseuds/DragonWarden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Flynn is his shepherd, and Clu wants very, very much more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Lord Is My Shepherd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wtb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtb/gifts).



> The very last scene, where Clu holds and, in his own way, tries to comfort a distraught Tron, actually popped fully-formed into my head after seeing [Winzler's livestream drawing](http://307020.com/post/14184994617/this-is-for-grey-who-asked-for-her-favourite). Obviously a different interpretation from the image, but particularly with the lead up action, hopefully it's fun anyway! \o/
> 
> (And wooooo - my second one-shot fic finished in the same day for Tron Virtualcon!)

"Cut the spans! Bring those bridges down before the instability reaches the thoroughfares!"

It wasn't as if they had expected it to be easy. These things never were.

 _"Sir, Tron's still crossing the Zero-Three connec - "_

"Tron knows what he's doing, now blow it!"

But things had never been this bad before.

An entire sector. They were going to lose an _entire sector_. Or, rather, Clu was being forced to _sacrifice_ an entire sector, and even as brilliant lances of energy heralded the slow crumble of one - two - _three_ spans into brittle dust, there was the closing roar of a lightcycle pushed to the limits of its parameters.

 _"Clear the way!"_

Programs scattered. Clu did not move, feet braced wide, hands clasped tight behind him as he watched his city crumble.

 _"Sir!"_

A streak of blue, bright as the portal's beacon, raced along the narrow bridge directly for him. Behind it, the once bright and vibrant lines of Tron City's delta-three sector wavered, glitching into rainbow fractals.

 _"He's not going to make it - "_

Voxels grayed along the bridge's disintegrating edge, grew dark from severed connections, and fell away in an ever-widening gap, racing to meet the lightcycle.

 _" - Sir, what do we do - "_

Fractures sparked, surfaces taxed beyond their limits. The steady howl of the engine choked as wheels churned through a crumbled edge and shot over empty space. Lights flickered, struggling, before machine and programs were sailing out in sudden silence as the power sputtered and died. Then, just as the lightcycle began to fall, feet pushed away from derezzing splines to send two bodies arcing up in a last, desperate bid for the opposite road's edge.

" _You_ will do _nothing_ ," Clu ordered as he lunged forward.

One arm wrapped around a petrified program's torso, teeth bared in a silent snarl, Tron's free hand strained toward him even as they both calculated the changing vectors and intersection points and found them falling just short of safety.

Clu put on a last burst of speed, light baton snatched from its sheath without thought, and threw himself upon the edge as he flung his arm out, the other slamming a partially-extended staff into the road as he skidded half over its end.

A hand slapped solidly into his, and he automatically clamped his fingers tight over it. Clu had time to suck in a single breath to brace himself before it was driven out of him in a grunt, the tug of two bodies nearly yanking them all into the abyss. His makeshift anchor sparked and tore at the road's surfacing, and someone cried out - a female voice, high and panicked.

Tron lifted his head only when everything became still, and grinned madly up from where he dangled by the strength of their combined grips alone.

"I thought you knew what you were doing," Clu growled as sentries belatedly rushed over, helping to drag all of them back onto solid ground.

"I did," Tron retorted breathlessly as he released his charge to the guards and the program was herded away. "You caught us, right?"

Clu snorted as he levered himself back to his feet, already preparing a scathing retort before he noticed the other program's preoccupation. Tron had paused as he gazed across the deep, to the other shore that was being eaten away on all sides, one hand still resting upon the forearm of the other, lax in the motion of kneading. "Tron," the administrator prompted, frowning.

"Is that ... is there someone still over there?"

Clu stiffened, then cut his gaze sharply toward the remaining island of ordered data. The shifting lines of chaos made it difficult to tell at first, illusory motion where voxels were being steadily reppropriated then dissolved, but it was only a few nanocycles more before he found what Tron had instinctively noted ... a figure, scrambling out of the shadow of the last few buildings still standing, staggering toward the half-ruined bridge.

"Tron, _no_."

The security program barely seemed aware of the hand now clamped upon his shoulder, leaning vaguely against its hold. "But he's ... he's right there, right in our sights ... "

"We don't have any lightjets here. That's a suicide run."

Tron squinted, and Clu more felt than heard the jerk of a breath sharply drawn. "I almost made the jump - "

" _Almost_ being the operative word," Clu growled, feeling his irritation rising when he was forced to shift his grip to Tron's arm, countering the program's forward pull. "You're not going to make the jump now that it's even wider - "

"I _could_ if it wasn't an overworked cycle. Give me two batons, one to carry me over, the other to bring us back - "

"Don't be ridiculous! He is only one program - "

"As am I!"

" _You_ are more valuable to the system!" Clu snarled. "Who is he to - "

"Ram! He looks like Ram!" Tron spat just as he twisted his arm right out of Clu's grip.

The designation 'Ram' meant nothing to Clu, and he did not have time to perform system-wide queries. Before Tron could take more than two running steps toward the nearest sentry, Clu interposed a leg ... and then hastily ducked when Tron abruptly turned on him with the backward fling of an elbow.

They had sparred before, for play and for practice. They had given each other equal instruction, melding knowledge both experienced and borrowed. The affairs had usually ended in either laughter or pained grumbles, mocking insults and pledges of rematches.

This time, they fought with snarls and growls, and when they grappled, it was with their full weight behind their blows.

Clu ducked the sweep of a knife hand, had his own knee-strike blocked, and then his balance shaken by a return elbow that struck high upon his chest, just shy of his throat. When a sentry rushed forward to intervene, Tron abruptly broke away, taking the program down in two rapid moves, and Clu nearly over-stretched in his haste to stomp upon the light baton that Tron was reaching for, shattering it with a flex of administrative will. Tron growled, striking for his middle, and Clu bent to absorb it with a grunt as he clumsily swept the follow-up punch aside, surprised when he was able to grasp the program's arm and pull him off his feet, rolling Tron over his hip to slam him into the ground.

He realized his mistake when Tron rolled over before he had even managed to suck in his first wheezing gasp, revealing light gleaming within the grip of his free hand, the sentry's second baton purloined during the throw.

"Stay back!" Clu barked when the other guards tried to approach, looping an arm around Tron's neck from behind only to have the program go limp and shrug, ducking out beneath the chokehold and heaving back, shoving them both to the ground. "Tron, stop - !"

"No, I can save him - !"

"You can't save _everyone_ ... " Clu growled when Tron kicked free, stolen baton raised in preparation for rezzing.

He evaded the backwards swing of Clu's fist, turned a hip against the following roundhouse kick. Fought back with a hook of his leg behind Clu's supporting knee and a desperately wild swing of his elbow for Clu's jaw.

As an administrator, Clu weighed the pros against the cons, the smaller against the greater good, husbanded their resources in order to ensure the survival of the most, rather than the individual. Tasked as a protector, Tron fought for those very individuals, denied the odds in order to accomplish miracles - and, unfortunately, could only see that which he could not save, while Clu could see so much more, could see _everything_.

Hampered by his distraction, attention split fatally between Clu and the opposite shore, it was only a few more fierce moments before Clu finally gripped, swung, and wrestled Tron's arm up high between his shoulder blades. A sharp, frustrated cry, and the baton was suddenly clattering to the ground as the angle forced Tron up onto his toes, hand going numb as his shoulder threatened to dislocate.

 _"Clu - !"_

"It's over, Tron, it's over," Clu whispered fiercely into the program's ear, wrapping his free arm around Tron's middle as insurance against further rebellion, hugging him close. "The entire bridge is already gone, there's no more odds left to calculate, it's over."

Tron shook, mute, gaze fixed upon the mass of dwindling voxels, a lonely island with its lonely occupant shrinking slowly into the distance.

"Let it go, let it go, let it go ... "

But even as he felt the manic tension begin to drain away, leaving Tron slumped and defeated against him, Clu decided that, _no_ , this was _not_ going to be something that _he_ was letting go.

Kevin will eventually return. And then Clu will make him understand. Clu will actually make him _listen_ next time ... even if it derezzed them both.


End file.
